


Deep Roots

by D_melanogaster



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers family (mentioned), Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Communication Failure, Existential Angst, M/M, Relationship Issues, Winter Soldier issues, brief Bucky/OMC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_melanogaster/pseuds/D_melanogaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> He’s been cold since the last time he was with Steve. He thinks he might have been cold even then, actually, but any memory of warmth he has also has Steve Rogers. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>The Bucky POV companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1796680">Broken-winged birds</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Roots

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Broken-winged birds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796680) by [D_melanogaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_melanogaster/pseuds/D_melanogaster). 



> All that is gold does not glitter,  
> Not all those who wander are lost;  
> The old that is strong does not wither,  
> Deep roots are not reached by the frost.  
> \- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
> 
> I still don't own anything, I even borrowed the title again.
> 
> This is a companion piece to Broken-winged birds, but you don't need to read that to make sense of this. There are no trigger warnings because I wasn't sure what to put in. The typical brainwashing and consent issues that go with the Winter Soldier apply here, and there is some non-explicit violence and threats of bodily harm.

He’s been cold since the last time he was with Steve. He thinks he might have been cold even then, actually, but any memory of warmth he has also has Steve Rogers.

He isn’t sure if he has a lot of memories yet, but he’s been having a lot of dreams. He thinks they might be the same thing.

He goes to the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian, and he finds he already knows some things. Others he knows are absolutely, ridiculously not true, and still others seem vaguely familiar but in a way where he can’t tell if he knows it first-hand or if someone told him.

He goes to Steve, then, because he knows Steve has been looking for him.

**

He remembers the oldest things first. He thinks it might be because they didn’t have the tech to do those wipe things back when they first got him, and those worked best on the fresh stuff – maybe these things he’d known long enough that they stuck. His head’s still Swiss cheese, and he can’t always figure out what came first, but he thinks he has enough to piece together his life.

He remembers Steve, small and sickly but the mouthiest damn kid in Brooklyn, taking on guys twice his size to stop them picking on alley cats. He hazily remembers he stepped in a lot.

He remembers the war, remembers feeling relieved Steve wasn’t there and worrying that there was nobody to step in between Steve and the bigger guys anymore. Remembers that then Steve was the bigger guy.

It’s all Steve, Steve, Steve until it’s not. He dreams about falling sometimes, the fall and then the cold.

After that it’s all bits and pieces, pain from his arm and agony from the news that Captain America crashed a plane into the sea. He doesn’t know if he remembered himself even then, but he remembers the worst thing was learning Steve Rogers was dead.

**

Steve takes him to New York, a building called the Avengers Tower. Steve says it’s safe, and he mostly believes him. He thinks it definitely is the safest place for Steve.

He remembers Steve had a place in Washington, as well – remembers shooting Steve’s boss there.

Steve says Fury survived that. He thinks he might feel relieved, if he could feel anything.

 

**

He dreams a lot. Sometimes entire scenes of his memories, sometimes a patchwork puzzle of them, sometimes just dreams. The worst ones are the ones that mix the real and the imagined – unless there’s something entirely incongruous, he can never tell which is which, and he doesn’t want to ask Steve.

He did it once with a dream that turned out just to be a dream. He doesn’t want to see that look on Steve’s face again.

Still, he takes to sleeping in the same bed with Steve. It’s okay because they used to do it before. It’s a lot easier to bring himself out of the nightmares with Steve there.

**

He gets introduced to Steve’s new team. They’re called the Avengers. There are two assassins, a polite, quiet scientist who apparently turns into a mutant monster if he loses control, and an egoist millionaire who likes his toys. Apparently there’s another one, a Norse god from another universe, but he lives in London with his girlfriend.

He doesn’t know what he thinks about them. First of all, the Avengers? But then, he’s been told he was a Howling Commando, so he doesn’t think he can mock them for the name. They all seem wary of him, which he understands and finds sensible. Steve’s trusted him far too much, he likes that someone has common sense around here.

Mostly, he doesn’t know what he thinks of Steve around them. In the museum, with the Captain America exhibit, he’d watched the newsreels and thought that someone had edited them so they showed Steve Rogers playing Captain America. Watching Steve interact with most of the team makes him want to start calling Steve ‘Captain’. They think that Steve’s stiff and boring and plays by the rules, that because he was born a few decades earlier he must be stupid and naïve and prejudiced.

He can’t remember most of his life, but even he knows enough to know that they’re idiots. None of that has ever been remotely true.

Or at least it wasn’t true before.

**

He dreams about kissing Steve a lot, in different ways and at different times. Steve when he was still little, thin and sickly, Steve dressed in his old uniform, Steve in his nightclothes after the serum. In Brooklyn, in Italy, in London, in a tent in the middle of nowhere. Always worried that someone would find out.

It’s allowed now. For the public in general, that is, to be with whoever they love no matter the gender. He thinks it might be allowed between him and Steve, too, figures that might explain the looks he gets from Steve. He thinks Steve’s just waiting for him to remember – Steve seems fixated on not pushing him. Steve isn’t going to ask.

So, one time, he kisses Steve. Steve goes very still for a moment, but then he’s kissing back, and when they pull apart Steve is smiling. Steve’s blushing a little, too, but there’s a giant goofy grin to distract from that. It makes him feel very warm inside to see Steve so happy. He likes it.

**

He remembers, vaguely and partly because he’s also been told, that he once left Steve in New York and shipped off to Europe himself. The next time he saw Steve, Steve was a foot taller and a lot healthier, behind enemy lines, going off unauthorized on a suicide mission.

Then he fell off a train and left Steve alone again. That time Steve got himself killed only days later. It’s turned Steve sadder, too, a bit stiffer. On the bad days, the only thing that keeps him from leaving is the bad precedent. Things don’t go well for Steve when he leaves.

But the first time, Steve got healthy, and this time, Steve got friends. There’s the Avengers, yes, but there’s also Sam Wilson. Wilson comes to visit for a week.

He thinks Wilson gives a better first impression of being Steve’s friend than the others did. Wilson seems to actually know a thing or two about who Steve is.

Wilson congratulates them on the new relationship. Steve seems pleased but brushes it off.

He can’t stop thinking about it. It’s not new. It can’t be new if it’s something that started decades ago. They used to do it before, it’s okay, it’s okay for everyone now. It makes Steve smile and that’s good. He remembers doing it before. He _remembers._

He remembers, but then… He also remembers Agent Carter now, and he remembers double dates, and he remembers thinking there was something wrong with him for wanting to be with Steve, remembers worrying someone would find out.

If Steve had been with him, Steve wouldn’t have flirted with Carter. That’s never been Steve’s thing. Steve never would have gone on the dates, either.

The realistic dreams are the worst. He can never tell them apart.

**

He can’t ask Steve about dreams, he doesn’t want to see Steve’s face when he asks, so he doesn’t ask Steve. But he must know, and so he goes to the quiet scientist.

The team is Steve’s, and he is Steve’s, so he knows anything he says Steve will probably hear later. He has training in interrogation, and he knows sometimes it’s better not to ask the question he wants answered.

He asks about Steve, instead.

The scientist – Banner – doesn’t know Steve all that well. It’s the first thing Banner says, followed by how he really should be asking Steve. But then, Steve doesn’t like to talk about what’s going on with him, brushes off his own troubles to make room for everyone else’s, and that gets Banner talking.

Steve’s seemed confused, a little sad and lonely, maybe, but that’s to be expected. Steve’s better now that he’s here, someone from before. Such a good friend before and even closer now.

He says thank you and leaves.

It’s new, it’s new and Steve didn’t say it was new, Steve went ahead with it because – because he suggested it? Steve will let him do anything, Steve will let himself be shot and then take him in, Steve will let him share a bed after almost getting killed – Steve is stupid and will brush off his own troubles to make room for everyone else’s.

He has plenty of troubles.

Is it only the kissing, has he taken other dreams for memories? Has he been doing things to Steve and thinking he had permission when he only imagined it?

“I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want,” Steve says, and at least then he knows.

**

Things get worse after. He can’t tell what’s real and what’s imagined, and so he doesn’t know how to act. He keeps looking for cues, for someone to tell him or to hint, but Steve’s team looks back like he might attack them, and Steve just looks back.

He doesn’t know how to tell what Steve’s looks mean, not if Steve doesn’t want him like that. Steve keeps looking at him, Steve’s always looking at him, and he’s had people looking at him for years.

He doesn’t think that’s what Steve’s looks mean, either.

**

He knows interrogation techniques, and he knows Steve will tell him what Steve thinks he wants to hear. He needs to get to know Steve’s team.

He needs a name to get to know Steve’s team. Steve calls him Bucky – he remembers Steve calling him Bucky a thousand times, in a thousand ways, before and after. He thinks that’s okay. He thinks he might like it.

The scientist, Banner, also called him Bucky when they spoke. He doesn’t think it sounded right. Banner sounded like he was trying to decide between Winter Soldier and Bucky, the unstable assassin and Steve’s old friend. Banner sounded like he was being polite to the unstable assassin.

He decides on James. It’s the name on his birth certificate, even if he doesn’t remember anyone ever calling him that. He’s been Bucky and Barnes and Sergeant, Soldier and Asset, but not ever really James. He likes Bucky best, but if he tells them to call him Bucky they might expect him to be the same. They could think he’s playing them. He tells them to call him James, and they relax.

Steve calls him Bucky, and he thinks maybe he should call himself that, too. He’s different than he used to be, but so is Steve. If there can be Steve before and after, there can be Bucky before and after.

**

Steve’s team mostly tells him that, as he already thought, they don’t know Steve.

They think Steve stormed that first HYDRA base on a sanctioned mission, to save the Allied prisoners. That Steve’s never gone against orders or that Steve wasn’t the sassiest kid in Brooklyn. They tease Steve about his age when really, Steve’s the youngest in years he’s actually lived.

They tease Steve about the press appearances, the publicity things. Steve used to hate that, used to call himself a dancing monkey or a performing seal or any bunch of circus metaphors, says he still does when Bucky asks. But when the team makes fun of him, he laughs along.

**

Steve draws a lot. Steve used to draw a lot, and read a lot, because his lungs and his heart – his everything some days – didn’t work right and he couldn’t really do much sometimes. It made him right smart, all the reading, and even without all the practice he always drew well.

Steve used to draw in pencil, because when he did colors someone told him he got them wrong, and that made him stop. Steve didn’t see colors right either, back then, and he was sensitive about it.

On the walk out of the HYDRA camp, Steve kept telling Bucky how great it was to see in color. He kept staring at Bucky because he’d known Bucky for years, but he only saw him in color now.

Bucky had been angry then, with the people who’d done this to Steve to get a supersoldier and let Steve come here to get himself shot sooner or later, with Steve for being so stupid and going along with it. But it had been hard to be angry when they walked and Steve didn’t start wheezing once, and was so excited that he now saw Bucky right.

Sometimes, they’d talked about what they’d all do after the war and once they got home. Steve had once said he’d like to get watercolors, in the wistful tones the other guys talked about sex or soft beds or warm showers.

Bucky remembers all this, so clearly it must be real, he’s _so sure_ he remembers this, but Steve only draws in pencil still. It makes Bucky angry again. The war’s over and Steve could easily afford the materials now, and yet he keeps staring at Bucky and always drawing in pencil.

**

Bucky keeps talking with the others, makes them comfortable by leading with things they have in common and then casually turning the conversation to Steve. He doesn’t get anywhere, never gets answers he doesn’t know or can’t dismiss as false, but he gets them to relax. They start talking to him, too. He succeeds in keeping his attempts at gathering data from Steve. It would be a fulfilled mission objective if they knew anything.

Even when Steve starts looking like he expects someone to slap him for walking into a room, they don’t seem to notice anything’s wrong. Steve doesn’t tell him what it is. It puts Bucky on guard, and he doesn’t like not knowing what to expect. Steve’s clearly expecting something.

Steve wasn’t even this tense when he first started living with a brainwashed assassin.

**

Steve said he doesn’t want Bucky, but he keeps looking. He says he doesn’t like the PR, but he jokes about it with the team. He didn’t say anything about the kissing, or sleeping in the same bed.

Steve keeps saying Bucky’s right and acting as if Bucky’s wrong.

Bucky still can’t tell which is which.

**

He tries to be right and act right to make Steve happy and relaxed again. Steve’s friends with the team – has more friends than just him now – so he invites them over to show it’s okay, they really don’t have to keep him quarantined anymore. He takes cues from the others because Steve seems okay with them.

He thinks Steve might be getting worse.

He can’t be the way he should be if he makes Steve act like that, but then he’s already found out the others don’t know much. Maybe he should try something older.

**

He remembers he used to go out a lot. With women. He used to arrange double dates for him and Steve. He was with Steve and took care of Steve when Steve was sick, and he went out with girls. If he did much else, he can’t remember.

Steve doesn’t get sick, and they’ve been together a lot, so maybe it’s the women? Steve seemed okay with the kissing, and didn’t protest, but maybe Steve thinks that’s something Bucky should be doing. With someone else, since Steve said no.

He tries. He can’t go for a girl, for some reason, and so he finds a guy. The guy seems like a respectable man, someone good, someone a normal person would go for and take home. Bucky brings the guy back, introduces him to Steve, goes about the whole thing like he thinks he might have done before. Steve smiles politely and chats with them for a moment.

Bucky takes the guy into his own room and does what he thinks he used to.

Steve looks worse the next morning. Bucky tries to keep going like before, tries to talk about it, but Steve doesn’t even try to smile when he attempts a joke and somewhere here he went very wrong.

**

He lives in the Avengers Tower but he’s not an Avenger. When the Avengers get called out, he’s told to stay put. He knows Steve vouched for him, so he doesn’t leave, doesn’t want to make trouble for Steve.

And then Steve gets hurt. Steve gets chewed up by _dinosaurs_ , when Bucky wasn’t there and his team was supposed to be watching his six. Bucky can only watch it on TV.

They tell him, calmly, carefully, that they expect Steve to be fine in only a few days. They explain how it happened, as if he hadn’t been watching it live.

He’s angry, angrier than he thinks he might ever have been, because they say these things happen. They say these things happen to _Steve_ , and that it’s fine, because Steve won’t even have the scars to show for it.

He screams at them. He rages and he shouts, because even if it heals it still _hurts_ , because they had two people in flight, a sniper, and a former Red Room assassin that _he himself helped train_ , and still nobody looked, nobody saw, nobody _noticed_ Steve was vulnerable until he was bleeding out on the ground, and what kind of a team are they if they don’t watch out for their own when they know he’s about to do something stupid?

They try to tell him that Steve can look after himself, and the momentary loss of his shield was regrettable but they couldn’t see it coming, but _bullshit._

There was a kid near Steve, and Steve is never going to make himself a priority when he has to choose between himself and someone else. Steve always does the dumbest shit, because he thinks he needs to prove something to himself or someone else, be it that he’s not small and helpless or that he’s worth the chance he got with the serum, or that he can be the hero they expect him to be or whatever he comes up with on a given day.

Steve is the kid who’s going to go AWOL from his USO tour to break into an enemy base with no experience at all, on the slim chance he might find his best friend still alive. Steve will always be that kid, and if they can’t see it coming, they’re stupider than he thought.

He doesn’t so much tell them this as he shouts it, screams his voice hoarse before he stops and realizes his eyes are leaking.

They look at him with pity, with shame and sorrow, and not the fear he expected after such an outburst. They apologize instead of bringing out the tranq darts.

They don’t let him see Steve because they don’t want to agitate him further. He interprets is as not wanting to risk him running rampant among civilians, now that they’ve seen how unstable he really can be.

Stark gives him access to the surveillance feed from the cameras in Steve’s hospital room. Bucky keeps watching it until they bring Steve home.

**

Steve comes home tired and subdued, and he doesn’t talk to Bucky much before he retires to his bedroom. Bucky remembers hospitals always took a lot out of him, so he lets Steve sleep.

He stays on the couch to keep watch and make sure nobody else bothers him, either.

**

Steve goes to talk to Stark a few days later. Bucky figures this is when they’ll tell Steve about his meltdown, because nobody seems to have done so yet.

Steve comes back real quiet, and goes back to his room for a while before he comes looking for Bucky.

Bucky’s worried, doesn’t want to look at Steve and see the disappointment. He still hasn’t figured out what the right way for him to be is, but he knows raging at Steve’s teammates isn’t it.

“Would it help you if you didn’t have to live with me anymore?” Steve says, and Bucky knew it. There was going to come a point Steve would give up and toss him out if he didn’t get his act right, and this is it.

“Why do you ask?” he asks, just to be a little shit, because even though he knew it was coming it still hurts. He doesn’t want to make it too easy.

“Well, I’ve been kind of getting the feeling that you don’t want me around. And it feels like you do better when I’m not here. I know you think I’m an obstinate moron, but I don’t actually want to make you miserable,” Steve says, and that’s something that Steve would say. Steve would go for what he thought was the right thing.

But Bucky’s tried to go for the right thing, too, and he’s getting punished for it. _It hurts._

“Are you kicking me out? I like it here.” He doesn’t think he can sound unaffected, so he plays it up. Maybe Steve will let him stay if he looks pathetic enough?

“Of course not, don’t be stupid. I’m telling you that  _I’m_  leaving,” Steve says, and… what? No, that wasn’t what Steve was telling him. He’s been wrong so he’s being punished. That’s how it works.

“I already talked to Stark and Miss Potts, and they helped me buy a new place in Brooklyn. It’s a lot more my style than this, really, and as you said, you like it here. You get along really well with everyone, too, and you spend a lot more time with them than I do. It only makes sense that you stay,” Steve goes on, like this was normal, like Bucky should have expected this. Like Bucky got everything wrong again, and it makes him flounder. He doesn’t want Steve to go away.

“But they’re your team, right? It’s not like you can just  _leave_  them,” he says, too honest, but he wants to say _you can’t leave me_. Things don’t go well for Steve when Bucky’s away.

“I’m not leaving anyone. For God’s sake, I’m going to  _Brooklyn_ , Stark could probably get me in less than ten minutes if needed. I’ll still see everyone, and of course they’ll still be my team. I’m just trying to make things easier on everyone. You’re obviously more comfortable in your own skin when I’m not around, and everybody’s noticed. It’d be nicer for all of us if things were a little less tense, and I’m taking out the stressor.”

Steve speaks as if it’s all simple, but Bucky doesn’t even know what his skin is when Steve’s not there.

“Look, I’m not saying it’s your fault, or that it’s bad if you feel you can’t be yourself when I’m around. I mean, obviously it’d be nice if you could, but it’s not like any of us can help how we feel. It’s not like I’m being a martyr either – I can see I’m hurting you just by being in the same room, and that makes me feel awful. I’ll be much happier back in the old neighborhood, knowing that you’ll be comfortable here.”

Steve keeps talking, and he’s so wrong. It doesn’t hurt Bucky when Steve’s around. It hurts Bucky when Steve thinks Bucky should be himself. Bucky’s been trying, but nobody will tell him who that is, _that’s why he gets everything wrong._

“You can bring Greg to stay over more often, too, I think he’ll be glad to have some privacy for a change,” Steve says, trying for a smile. Bucky thinks Greg was the guy he brought over to show Steve he was back to normal, and he knew there was something wrong with that, _he knew it_. Are his mistakes getting tallied now, let pass but added up and then brought back up later?

“I’ll always be on your team, too, and I hope you know that. You’ll always be my best guy no matter what. But times change, I guess, and it’s not like we need to be living together anymore to make ends meet. I changed the sheets on the bed, if you want to use it for guests. You can do whatever you want with the room, obviously.” Steve stops his speech and gets back up, and Bucky wants to ask how he can be his best guy and still make Steve leave.

“You’re leaving already?” is what comes out instead, because Steve has planned this. He’s been planning this for a while, to get a new place and all, but he’s leaving with no warning after Bucky went off on his friends, and he didn’t know to expect this.

Steve smiles and shrugs and dismisses him with something about not having many things to pack, and then he leaves. The door closes with a quiet click.

**

Bucky doesn’t just let Steve leave, of course.

Steve said seeing Bucky makes him feel awful, so Bucky doesn’t let him see, but he watches. He keeps an eye on Steve because his teammates have already failed, and things don’t go well for Steve when Bucky’s away.

He looks after Steve until they tell him to stop, the Widow and Hawkeye. They say that if Steve wants to be on his own, Bucky has to let him. That if Bucky wants to do something for Steve, he needs to come up with something other than stalking.

Steve said to do what he wants with the bedroom. Steve said to bring Greg over. Greg was obviously wrong, so wrong, so Bucky won’t even consider that, but he needs to do something about the bedroom.

Miss Potts says Steve wanted an apartment where he could make himself a studio, somewhere with a room entirely for his art. If Steve wants a studio, he should have one here, but Bucky doesn’t want to refurbish Steve’s room.

He likes Steve’s room.

He asks Miss Potts to help him, because she seems to know what to do. He tells her to use his room.

**

He joins the Avengers. He talks to Fury and Hill and someone called Coulson and the doctors they parade out. He tells them what they need to hear to let him in.

He tells them he’ll be going with the Avengers no matter what, because he’s had enough of being told what to do but he’s not letting Steve go with them without someone watching his back.

**

The longer Steve stays in his new place, the more distant he becomes.

Bucky finds a sketchbook in Steve’s bedroom. Not the new room, but this one, in the Tower. People keep thinking he’s breaking into Steve’s new place when he says something about Steve’s room, but that’s what it is so what else is he supposed to call it?

He finds a sketchbook filled cover to cover with drawings in pencil. No color.

Steve must have been drawing Bucky all that time, because it’s mostly him. The old him and him in the army and whatever he is now, in careful detail because that’s how Steve always drew, even before the serum fixed his eyes.

Steve has a book full of drawings of Bucky, and he left it here like he left Bucky here. He might have said he didn’t want to see Bucky, but Bucky doesn’t want Steve to forget him. He mails Steve the book, to keep his distance even as he’s telling Steve to look at him.

He’s wrong again, _wrong wrong wrong_ , because Steve starts calling him James.

**

He’s not James, he’s never been James to Steve, he doesn’t ever want to be, and Steve needs to stop.

He’s Bucky, and being Bucky is the only thing he got right.

 _He’s Bucky_. That’s not wrong. It’s not.

**

He doesn’t get to talk to Steve about who he is before Steve disappears.

Disappears, unconscious, with HYDRA agents who want to turn him back to small and ill and fragile. Agents who have three days to do whatever they want, when Bucky knows how much damage they can do in three hours.

The Avengers spend the three days working night and day to bring him back. It doesn’t help that Steve’s the one who’s missing, because he usually keeps them in line when tempers run high.

Bucky substitutes. When the team devolves to petty squabbling, he tells them to focus, reminds them it’s Steve, shows them some tricks to get them to work faster.

At one point, Bucky holds the Widow’s knife to Hawkeye’s fingers and promises he’ll never hold a bow again if he doesn’t quit with the wisecracks about Steve’s possible condition.

They take him very seriously after that.

**

The worst thing is not that he’s killed people. Not even that he’s killed people because he was told to do so when he didn’t remember who he was.

The worst thing was that they made him do it. They made him into someone else so that he’d kill people for them, made it so that he couldn’t say no or ask why.

They made him try and kill Steve, a man who he remembered even when he didn’t remember himself, and _they succeeded_.

The worst thing is that they could do it again. The very worst thing is that they could do it to _Steve_.

**

They find Steve and get him out.

Bucky finds Steve strapped to a table, conscious only long enough to grin at Bucky in relief and then turn very sad and go out cold again. Bucky gets him out of there and makes sure none of the HYDRA agents will get anywhere.

**

Steve’s even quieter, after. Bucky brings him home, back to his bedroom in the Tower, even though Steve doesn’t really want to come. The Widow gives Steve a speech this time, about how much effort they put into getting Steve back, and Steve relents.

When Steve first went to Brooklyn, Bucky was told to let him go. Apparently she doesn’t have to do what Steve tells her. Bucky’s jealous, because _he_ would like to make sure Steve’s safe, but if she does it for him he won’t complain.

When Bucky keeps an eye on Steve, Steve keeps saying Bucky’s hovering. Bucky asks Steve’s other friends to come around, if he doesn’t want to be around Bucky, but Steve says he doesn’t need a minder.

Steve keeps talking about going back to Brooklyn, but he won’t say anything about what was done to him. He says he doesn’t remember, but Bucky knows how hard that is to forget.

Bucky also knows Steve, and he knows when Steve’s lying.

**

Stark shows Bucky the recording of what was done to Steve.

It’s a video of Steve being cut and poisoned and screaming in pain. When he sees it, Bucky wants to make the HYDRA agents bleed and scream again. He can’t because they’re already dead.

So he only watches and listens. Sometimes they just talk to him, about how he would be nothing if he hadn’t been enhanced. How he was a friendless runt growing up, and he’s equally friendless now – or worse, because even his former best friend tried to kill him. They ask about Bucky – call him the Winter Soldier, and ask if Steve thinks he’ll ever want anything to do with Captain America.

It makes Steve look more hurt than the knives do, and Bucky wants to kill them all over again.

**

Steve says he knows none of it was true, but he doesn’t say it very convincingly. Bucky’s always known Steve’s stupid about some things, but he didn’t think Steve would be _that_ dumb.

**

Steve keeps talking about leaving, and Bucky still doesn’t want him to go. Steve also keeps calling him James, and moping around like he did when they wouldn’t let him enlist.

Bucky remembers agreeing _to the end of the line_ , and Bucky remembers _times change, I guess_ and _that makes me feel awful_ and _it’s not like we need to be living together anymore_.

Clearly something’s not right with Steve, and living alone in Brooklyn only got him kidnapped, so Bucky thinks it’s time to try another thing he used to do and take care of Steve. By “take care of” he means “arrange for a compromise”, and to do that he goes to Stark.

Stark laughs for three minutes straight at Bucky’s proposal. Then he looks up and realizes how very much Bucky isn’t joking, probably remembers Bucky’s lack of appreciation for humor where Steve’s wellbeing is involved, and abruptly turns serious.

“Listen, Barnes, if Cap wants his own apartment here, he’ll get it. But with all the trouble he went through to get you back and keep you, the whole bending over backwards to do anything you might think of wanting, I doubt being around you is the problem,” Stark says. He looks Bucky into the eyes as he speaks, to show that he means it and he’s not afraid, and Bucky appreciates that. Even if Stark still keeps a Taser on hand for when Bucky’s around.

“I’ll give it a shot, but you’d have better luck. Just tell him not to go, the man is fanatical about your consent,” Stark goes on to dismiss him, and Bucky takes it as the cue it is and leaves.

**

Bucky spends the night sitting in a corner of the studio Steve may never use.

He has realized many times over that the Avengers don’t know Steve, and that taking their cues is not what he needs to do to get things right, and that is why it rankles so much that Stark tells him what he has been doing wrong. He’s supposed to know Steve and how Steve thinks, and he has been interpreting everything wrong.

Steve is _fanatical about his consent_. Steve wants to do what Bucky wants to do, and Steve doesn’t want to do anything that _Bucky doesn’t want_. Like Steve has clearly been saying all along. Like Steve would say, and do, because that is exactly who Steve is.

Because Steve thinks of him as Bucky, who is allowed to do things he wants and not have unwanted things done to him. Who is allowed to ask questions and say yes or no.

A person.

And Bucky has been thinking of himself as an asset to do things as ordered, doing things right or wrong, where others decide for him which is which.

That got Steve to leave and call him James when he wants to be Bucky and have Steve. Hazy memories are not enough to turn him into a person, he needs to actually act like one.

Bucky has a sudden thought of himself as Pinocchio with Steve his Jiminy Cricket, talking about turning him into a real boy. It has him burying his face in his hands and laughing until he cries.

**

The next day, Bucky goes out. He knows Stark doesn’t like to let things wait, and he wants to give him room to talk to Steve. It gives him time to check out Steve’s other apartment, make sure it’s clean of surveillance and nobody’s lying in wait.

After that, he spends the rest of the day walking around, wondering how Steve can stand to live in their old neighborhood. There’s not much that’s the same as it was, but there’s enough to get him thinking about it. Enough to make him think about what he wouldn’t give to get back there to before this all happened.

He can’t come up with much.

Steve’s still up when he gets back, in the living room staring thoughtfully into space.

“Do you want me to go back to Brooklyn?” Steve asks as soon as he spots Bucky, and yes, Stark works fast. And there it is again. _Do you want?_ Because Steve thinks he’s allowed to want.

Bucky goes over to the living room, as well, takes a seat on the couch and considers. He doesn’t want Steve to leave. He never wanted Steve to leave, and it was not a punishment before. It will not be a punishment now. There will not be a punishment at all if he speaks his mind. There doesn’t need to be.

So he says no. He says, “No. I don’t want you to leave.”

“You want me to stay here?” Steve asks, and he sounds surprised. Surprised and not upset, and maybe Bucky doesn’t need to act right, but he thinks if he did, this would be it. And again, _you want?_

Yes. Yes he does, and he says so.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll stay,” Steve says, relieved and happy, and Bucky likes seeing that.

“I’m sorry. For last time. I was a jerk,” Bucky says, because he’s spent a night and a day thinking about it, and he was. He doesn’t know how to explain why he was, but he tries. “It was just too good to be real, y’know? I kept thinking that there had to be some trick, some price, and it would suddenly all just disappear. Of course, I just ruined everything myself in the end.”

It’s not coming out right, he’s not saying it right, and he needs a way to say it better, to make Steve understand. But Steve knows him too, and maybe he gets it, because he speaks before Bucky finds his words.

“No, come on, James. I don’t think anything’s beyond repair.” Steve’s voice is a little wobbly, and Steve used to like hugs when he sounded like that. Bucky thinks he might want a hug. Bucky thinks he definitely doesn’t want to be called James.

“Would you come here already?” Bucky says, holds his arms out for Steve, and instantly he has his arms full. And he’s allowed to want things and ask for what he wants, he’s allowed to be a person, _he’s allowed_ , so he says, “Keep – keep calling me Bucky, okay? I’m  _Bucky_ , I promise, Steve, I promise I am,” and Steve laughs and holds him tighter and agrees.

**

And so Steve stays.

Turns out, Steve really likes the studio.

 


End file.
